2027: Southwest, Tinubu’s supporters playing with fire

It is actually premature to be talking about the 2027 elections less than 2 years into our first tenure, but what is happening in the political arena is forcing me to speak to it, for as they say ‘a stitch in time saves nine’.

As an All Progressives Congress (APC) member, I naturally would want my party to win re-election in 2027.

However, as a realist, I have my concerns.

I recall that during the 2019 party primaries when I saw the way our party was handling the Primaries, I wrote that if the party wasn’t careful, it could go the way of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which lost power after 16 years.

I predicted then that if we didn’t return to our promised progressive path and ideology and instead stayed obsessed with just winning elections at any and all cost, just like the PDP, we could lose power at the federal level by 2031.

When I wrote that, we were not faced with the current situation we are faced with. Indeed, I never imagined that we would be in the current situation any time soon, surely not under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Note: I am not talking about the present economic situation and the like. I am talking about the current and increasing ‘ghaghagha’ in our party and among APC members and supporters of the PBAT administration.

Incidentally, many Nigerians have a short memory. Permit me to juggle the memories of some short memories and uninitiated political neophytes.

Many will recall that, as we approached the 2023 presidential election, with the conduct of some individuals, I desperately cautioned that we should be careful and not play with the North. Somehow, common sense prevailed, and we succeeded, unarguably and undeniably with the unquantifiable help of the North (the records of the election results prove so).

Less than 2 years into the tenure, we are witnesses to how the relationship between the North and President Bola Tinubu or rather his administration is quickly deteriorating, driven by the words and conduct of unfortunately, many from the President’s geopolitical zone and tribe. Truth be told.

I have read and heard the arrogant posturing and braggadocio by some people who I refer to as political rabble-rousers, but I get more worried each day as it keeps looking more and more like a movie we had seen before.

May I remind some persons that, more than the performance or lack thereof of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration, it was his attitude, and that of people around him, towards the North that ultimately brought him down and by extension the PDP that had boasted that it would rule Nigeria for 60 years?

In the lead-up to the 2015 Presidential election, in spite of the popularity of General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) and the gathering of political heavyweights under the umbrella of the then newly formed APC, one key factor that led to former President Jonathan and the PDP losing that election was underestimating the North and the disrespect and insult directed towards to North, notably led by the then first lady and accentuated by elements from the South-South geopolitical zone and particularly his Ijaw kinsmen, many of them with little or no political weight and many of whom were living full time in NICON and Sheraton hotels Abuja then (with newly found free money).

Funny enough, many of these individuals contributed little or nothing to Jonathan’s victory in 2011.

Indeed, many of them forgot that it was the agitation by groups like the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), spearheaded by the likes of Pastor Tunde Bakare, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, Mr Yinka Odumakin (RIP) and co that eventually led to then VP Goodluck Jonathan becoming the acting President in the first place following the incapacitation of former President Shehu Musa Yaradua (God rest his soul).

Driven by ego and the arrogance of power, these South-South and PDP elements increasingly and I dare add naively went against the North, where the PDP still had considerable influence and support then, in the most condescending manner and in so doing gradually lost the support of the North to the advantage of Buhari and the APC coalition. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today, as I Iook at the rambunctiousness of some APC members and fellow supporters of President Bola Tinubu, especially from the Southwest geopolitical zone, I wonder if people have any sense of history and if they truly understand Nigerian politics.

I read some people say that President Tinubu is not former President Jonathan, Jagaban is a political juggernaut and master strategist, etc. All that I totally agree with. No question whatsoever. However, politics is not a one-champion show.

While fPGEJ lacked equivalent political gravitas and sophistication (with all due respect to him) as PBAT, he had the then formidable PDP behemoth which could have actually seen him through but for the grievous ‘political mistake’ of messing with the North.

Love or loathe that fact, the North remains the kingmaker in Nigerian politics, at least, as of today. Any politician or political party that plays with that reality might pay a steep political price for it.

People who ignore history are bound to fall victim and repeat the mistakes of the past.

I just want to prod our political senses, in case some of us are forgetting, in the euphoria of tribal and geopolitical politics.

I hope better sense will prevail and soon too. It is whom you love that you chastise.

In all, I continue to wish PBAT and my party, the APC well.

With almost exactly two years to the month to the 2027 general elections, let’s focus and continue to deliver the promised dividends of democracy to Nigerians.

#GodBlessNigeria

Diala writes via [email protected]; the post was first shared by former Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, on X